Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V13_4/V13_412.TXT

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Subject: SPACE Digest V13 #412

SPACE Digest                                     Volume 13 : Issue 412

Today's Topics:
          Re: Space research, teflon, etc, etc,....
             Re: Voyager CD-ROMs On-Line
             Re: Fred on the Moon
             Re: NASA & Executive Branch
                  Re: Vacuum
             Re: CD-ROMs at ames
             Re: Space Camp in Huntsville
         Re: Questions about pioneer/Voyager
              RE: SPACE Digest V13 #409
           electromagnetic launchers & apogee kick
             Re: Space Camp in Huntsville

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Date:    Mon, 15 Apr 91 15:50 CDT
From: Bob Rehak Ext. 3-9437
 <[e-mail]>
         (AIS Central Services  -  Swen Parson 146)
Subject: Re: Space research, teflon, etc, etc,....


I think it's worth noting that some great technology has been spawned
by space research; however, I would have to say that the great tech-
nological progress we (earthlings) have made in this last century has
been driven primarily by military necessity (sad but true).  Our
primative desires to acheive 'the good life' at the expense of others
has been with us since the beginning of time.  Thus nations have
wasted millions on armies to be able to either defend themselves or
to assert their will over others or subjugate them.  The best
trained and equipped army usually wins.  Ous best scientific and
engineering minds are wasted on developing ways to more effectively
kill other people.  It's sad that communications technology is driven
by a need to keep secrets, aircraft technology on fighters and
bombers, satellite technology and remote sensing on a need to 'keep
an eye' on the other guy, medical technology on the need to 'put
the pieces back together again' after a war and make our children
look human again.

Now don't get me wrong, I believe in having a strong defense.  I
beleive that necessity is the mother of invention.  I just think
it's sad that in today's day and age, governments drive necessity
which in turn tends to be something of a military nature.  Thomas
Edison, Henry Ford, and the Wright brothers suffered alone for
many years trying to perfect their inventions.  Maybe we should
be finding modern day inventors like these and start funding their
research.  Space research doesn't necessarily have to be done by
NASA.  Being a part of the government, NASA is burdened by the
usual government mismanagement, waste, meddling, restriction of
scientific thought, and a 'just get the job done attitude'.  The
Challenger is a good example of my last comment.

There has to be a better way to promote scientific research.

------------------------------

Date: 10 Apr 91 18:54:16 GMT
From: mojo![e-mail]  (Doug Mohney)
Subject: Re: Voyager CD-ROMs On-Line

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (baalke, ron) writes:
>
>     Peter Yee and I are pleased to announce a major addition to the SPACE
>archive at NASA Ames Research Center.
>
>     There are eight CD-ROMs that contain about 16,000 images taken by
>Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 on their encounters with Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.
>Images from these Voyager CD-ROMs are now available on-line at the Ames SPACE
>archives.  A CD-ROM drive has been installed at the Ames site allowing direct
>access to the CD-ROM via anonymous ftp to ames.arc.nasa.gov (128.102.18.3).
>The images are in the /pub/SPACE/CDROM directory.  The plan is to rotate
>the CD-ROMs on a weekly basis.  The first CD-ROM currently on-line is the
>Voyager Saturn Encounter, Volume 4.  A new Magellan CD-ROM and three new
>Neptune CD-ROMs are also available, and will be quickly be placed on-line when
>Peter receives them.

[other technical information cut....]

>We would like to thank the following people and organizations:
>
>Dr. Bradford A. Smith, Team Leader, Voyager Project
>Planetary Data System, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
>National Space Science Data Center, Goodard Space Flight Center
>Randall Robinson, NASA Ames Research Center Communications Operations Branch

And ***THANK YOU***, Peter, Ron, and NASA.....


(Now to find the time to poke around with them...another story...)


     Signature envy: quality of some people to put 24+ lines in their .sigs
  -- >                  [e-mail]                        < --

------------------------------

Date: 10 Apr 91 18:47:13 GMT
From: mojo![e-mail]  (Doug Mohney)
Subject: Re: Fred on the Moon

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Jose Pina Coelho) writes:

>Other inconveniences:
>  Supplies: the energy difference between getting them into low orbit
>  and getting them to the moon is quite big.

Sure, if you use conventional techniques. If you're not in a hurry (gosh, the
moon will still be there), use a combination of solar sails and ion thrusters
to move large cargos. Will take a bit longer, but your fuel costs are much
less.

>  No 0G.

Too bad :-). Most things which need 0G (ie: microgravity processing of
materials) also don't need human beings bouncing around the platform to set up
vibrations to screw up the processing.

>  Basicaly the startup cost is dozens/hundreds of times that of LEO.
>  Politics, politics, politics ...

Hundreds? No. Dozens. No. Some factor between 2 and 12 times the cost, yes.

     Signature envy: quality of some people to put 24+ lines in their .sigs
  -- >                  [e-mail]                        < --

------------------------------

Date: 15 Apr 91 16:11:46 GMT
From: mintaka!think.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!pbs.org![e-mail]
Subject: Re: NASA & Executive Branch

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Mary Shafer) writes:
>
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>
> Boy are you confused.  Certainly we're not a Cabinet level agency, but
> we're still a federal agency, part of the Executive Branch.
>
> I'll repeat this once, and then you're on your own.
>
> NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, a U S
> Government agency.  We are part of the Executive Branch.
>
Would it be possible then for the President to declare by Executive Order that
NASA is returning to the moon and skip all the haggling with nearsighted
Conressmen?

------------------------------

Date: 15 Apr 91 05:06:18 GMT
From: ucselx!usc!jarthur!nntp-server.caltech.edu!ptimtc!rdmei!icspub!astemgw!kuis!rins![e-mail]  (will)
Subject: Re: Vacuum

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Henry Spencer) writes:
>you're dying.  The limits are not really known.


    How about sending up someone to test it.   Sadamm would be a good
choice.


                        Will......

------------------------------

Date: 15 Apr 91 17:42:38 GMT
From: trident.arc.nasa.gov![e-mail]  (Peter E. Yee)
Subject: Re: CD-ROMs at ames

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Eddie A. McCreary) writes:
|> Thanks to the guys at JPL and Ames for providing the Voyager images
|> for ftp.  (And I was just starting to get some work done this semester :-))
|> I would like to hear from anyone who has come across any particulary good
|> images.  I don't have time to go through them all.

Glad to hear you like.  You will probably find that searching through the
browse sized images (200x200) instead of the full size images will be a lot
quicker and allow you to find some good (interesting?) images that you can
then look at in full resolution.

                            -Peter Yee
                            [e-mail]
                            ames!yee

------------------------------

Date: 15 Apr 91 13:43:16 GMT
From: vicorp![e-mail]  (John Methot)
Subject: Re: Space Camp in Huntsville

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Douglas Harper) writes:
>Has anyone here gone or sent someone to summer camp at the U.S. Space
>Camp in Huntsville Alabama?  I'd like to know whether it's worth the
>money.  Nothing can match an intensive, guided week-long experience,
>I'm sure, but I understand that many of the attractions the camp
>advertises are open to the general public free of charge.

I haven't been to Space Camp, but I just paid my first visit to Huntsville
a couple of weeks ago and visited the U.S. Space & Rocket Center (home of
the Space Camp).  The only thing "free" there is a walk around the
decommissioned (do you say that about aircraft?) SR-71 that is (temporarily,
I assume) parked in the parking lot.  It costs the public $11.95/person
to enter the center.  I'm pretty sure the Center is a private venture -
though their obviously very cozy relationship with NASA makes it hard
to tell.  A government organization would never think up an admission
price like $11.95!

The Center has an astronaut training center that is not open to the public.
You can see into it from the public areas but cannot participate.  Space
Campers only.  The Space Campers get to "train" in a Neutral Bouyancy Tank,
centrifuges, simulators, etc.  Looked like a lot of fun to me, and the
Campers I saw seemed to be having a blast.  I assume they also get some
detailed tours of Marshall Space Flight Center a couple of miles away
(paying visitors get an interesting but cursory tour of Marshall - I saw
the real Neutral Bouyancy Tank, the Space Station mockup (pretty neat)
and the main test stands which are cuurently testing the shuttle main
engines).

Campers also stay in the "Habitat" which looks sort of space station like
from the outside.

I didn't grab a brochure for the Space Camp while I was there, sorry.

------------------------------

Date: 15 Apr 91 15:58:53 GMT
From: csus.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utzoo![e-mail]  (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Questions about pioneer/Voyager

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>1) How was the collision with astroid belts avoided?

It wasn't.  The asteroid belt is 99.9999...% empty space.  The only real
concern was that there might be a high density of dust there, but there
wasn't.

>2) How were/are they powered? If with nuclear power; how come NASA
>doesn't quote its sucess to the people demonstrating against nuclear
>powered crafts?

The power source is nuclear:  isotope thermal generators.  NASA quotes
it constantly, but you surely don't think the demonstrators listen?
--
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 12:53 GMT
From: AMON <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: SPACE Digest V13 #409


Danny Sadinoff, Bussard Ram Jets

Unfortuneatly this concept is dead. Recent work by Zubrin at the request
of Robert Forward shows that the scoop will act as a drag device rather
than collect fuel. The other side of the coin is that this leads to
a truly marvelous device called a MagSail, which is primarily of use
in our solar system, or as a braking device for a laser or microwave
driven interstellar sail.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 Apr 91 15:23:54 PDT
From: fermat![e-mail] (Richard Schroeppel)
Subject: electromagnetic launchers & apogee kick


As part of a discussion about railguns & electromagnetic launchers,
Henry Spencer writes

>Actually, a more fundamental problem is that anything launched to less
 than escape velocity from Earth's surface ends up in an orbit that
 intersects the surface.  It needs at least a *bit* of apogee kick anyway.

There are at least two ways around this, if the object is launched
with near escape velocity, reaching a high apogee:

(1)  The moon, and solar perturbations, both provide slight tweaks to
     the object's orbit.  These could raise its perigee from 0 to 200km.
     If the object comes anywhere near the moon, its orbit can change
     drasticly.  ("Around the Moon", J. Verne, c. 1865)  If the apogee
     is beyond the moon's orbit, solar perturbations are also important.

(2)  If the object is launched high enough, a tug can grab it on the
     first orbit.  (The object carries extra fuel for the tug.)  Or a
     high orbit habitat could snag the object on a kevlar fishing line.

Finally, a cheat:  If the attitude of the object can be guaranteed,
the apogee kick can be provided by a passive system:  Make an
"outgassing" rocket, with the gas being water vapor supplied by a
block of ice, inside a black section of the object.

Rich Schroeppel                                       [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 15 Apr 91 19:43:12 GMT
From: haven!cs.wvu.wvnet.edu![e-mail]  (James D Mooney,205K, 7,2913548)
Subject: Re: Space Camp in Huntsville

From article <[e-mail]>, by [e-mail] (John Methot):
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Douglas Harper) writes:
>>Has anyone here gone or sent someone to summer camp at the U.S. Space
>>Camp in Huntsville Alabama?  I'd like to know whether it's worth the
>>money.  Nothing can match an intensive, guided week-long experience,
>>I'm sure, but I understand that many of the attractions the camp
>>advertises are open to the general public free of charge.
>
My daughter, now 15, is returning to Huntsville this summer for her
third "space camp" in four years.  She insists that I call the
program this year by its proper name -- Space Academy II (Space Camp
is for children).  Actually she will have taken part in three
different programs, two in Huntsville and one at Cape Canaveral.

She loved it, to put it mildly.  She is now planning to be an
astronautical engineer.  I have not seen the place myself but it seems
like a very worthwhile (if somewhat expensive) experience.  Cost, by the
way, ranges from about $400 to $675, depending on level and season.
This pays all costs for a one-week program, except transportation and
optional souvenir items.  The program is conducted year-round.  Summer
months are usually fully booked at least five or six months in advance.

If you have any more specific questions, I'm sure my daughter will
be glad to answer them.
--
Jim Mooney                Dept. of Stat. & Computer Science
[phone]                West Virginia University
                    Morgantown, WV 26506
INTERNET: [e-mail]

------------------------------

End of SPACE Digest V13 #412
*******************